On 28 January 2010 12:46, Jack Mallah <jackmal...@yahoo.com> wrote: > I'm replying to this bit seperately since Bruno touched on a different issue > than the others have. My reply to the main "measure again '10" thread will > follow under the original title. > > --- On Wed, 1/27/10, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: >> I would also not say yes to a computationalist doctor, because my >> consciousness will be related to the diameter of the simulated neurons, or >> to the redundancy of the gates, etc. (and this despite the behavior remains >> unaffected). This entails also the existence of zombie. If the neurons are >> very thin , my "absolute" measure can be made quasi null, despite my >> behavior remains again non affected. > > This relates to what I call the 'problem of size', namely: Does the size of > the components affect the measure? The answer is not obvious. > > My belief is that, given that it is all made of quantum stuff, the size will > not matter - because the set of quantum variables involved actually doesn't > change if you leave some of them out of the computer - they are still > parameters of the overall system. > > But there is an important and obvious way in which size does matter - the > size of the amplitude of the wavefunction, the square of which is > proportional to measure according to the Born Rule. > > I would say that if we really had a classical world and made a computer out > of "classical water" waves, the measure might be proportional to the square > of the amplitude of those waves. I don't know - I have different proposals > for how the actual Born Rule comes about, and depending on how it works, it > could come out either way. > > I don't think there is any experimental evidence that size matters. But some > might disagree. If they do, there are a few points they could make: > > - Maybe big brains have more measure. This could help explain why we are men > and not mice. > > - Maybe in the future, people will upload their brains into micro-electronic > systems. If those have small measure, it could explain the "Doomsday > argument" - if the future people have low measure, it makes sense that we are > not in that era. > > - Maybe neural pathways that recieve more reinforcement get bigger and give > rise to more measure. This could result in increased effective probablility > to observe more coincidences in your life than would be expected by chance. > Now, coincidences often are noticed by us and we tend to think there are > many. I think this has more to do with psychology than physics - but who > knows?
Do you think that simply doubling up the size of electronic components (much easier to do than making brains bigger) would double measure? For example, you could make the copper tracks on a circuit board twice as thick, put two transistors in parallel rather than one, double the surface area as well as the separation of the plates in the capacitors, and so on. It would take a bit of design effort, but you could make a circuit where every component was doubled up and connected by a wire bridge with a switch, and all the switches controlled by one master switch. You could then flick the switch and alternate between two separate but parallel circuits or one circuit. Would flicking the switch cause a doubling/halving of measure? Would it be tantamount to killing one of the consciousnesses every time you did it? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
